I have been having a rough time reading lately, mainly because so many of the books I bought in the past few months are not, as advertised, engrossing or well written. My disappointment abounds. Yet there have been some diamonds among the charcoal, and I will just have to write about two of those in this installment of my blog. Thank heaven it's almost December, when I can get all the books on my wish list for my birthday and Christmas!
This is one of the best holiday gift ideas I've ever heard! I really want this, and I wish some bookstore around here or in Oregon would do this!
Cool Christmas Idea: the English Bookshop http://www.shelf-awareness.com/ct/uz3642037Biz46518888 in Uppsala, Sweden, is featuring a festive option for the holiday season: "ENJOY THE WAIT for Christmas even more this year with The English Bookshop Advent Calendar (by Stina)! FOUR SECRET and numbered gifts, one for every week until Christmas, each containing a book, a 50 gram bag of loose leaf tea and a sweet snack. All books are hand-picked by Stina, teas and snacks provided by Tehoumlrnan Uppsala (www.teshop.se). THREE THEMES to choose between: Comfort & Joy (Feelgood), In the Bleak Midwinter (Mystery) and lastly Winter is Coming' (Fantasy)."
This is just delightful, that our new and wonderful POTUS (and the amazing VPOUS) has chosen a former bookseller as a member of his cabinet. There's been such a dearth of intelligent and thoughtful people in the White House these past four years, it's refreshing to see the change that is already happening as the boil is lanced and that creeper Trump and his cronies have their poison removed from American society for a healthy new start in 2021.
Biden's Director of National Intelligence Nominee a Former Bookseller
Among the cabinet picks announced by President-elect Joe Biden yesterday was Avril Haines, who will become the first woman to serve as Director of National Intelligence if confirmed. The Baltimore Sun http://www.shelf-awareness.com/ct/uz3642037Biz46518905 reported that Haines had also been the first woman to be deputy director of the CIA and served as former President Barack Obama's principal deputy national security adviser. She has worked with Biden for more than a decade.
Bookselling is part of her resume as well. By the time she was 24, Haines had studied physics at Johns Hopkins University after receiving a degree in physics from the University of Chicago, the Sun noted, adding: "In the mid-1990s, tired of studying physics, she opened Adrian's Book Cafe in Fells Point, an eclectic bookstore cafe at 714 S. Broadway, with her future husband, David Davighi. The store paid tribute to her mother, featuring her paintings." Among the store's events were monthly erotica literature readings, which some media have highlighted.
But there was much more, of course: Adrian's Book Cafe sold classics, popular fiction, magazines, coffee and light fare."I picked a professional," Biden said. "A fierce advocate for telling the truth and leveling it with the decision makers.... I know because I've worked with her for over a decade. Brilliant. Humble. Can talk literature and theoretical physics, fixing cars, flying planes and running a bookstore cafe, all in a single conversation--because she's done all of that."
This looks exciting, and I've always wondered about the life of Tennessee Williams.
Movies: Leading Men
Playwright Matthew Lopez (The Inheritance) will write a film adaptation of Christopher Castellani's novel Leading Men http://www.shelf-awareness.com/ct/uz3642037Biz46571344, which centers on playwright Tennessee Williams and his longtime partner Frank Merlo, for Searchlight Pictures, Variety reported. The film is produced by Luca Guadagnino and Peter Spears, who previously teamed for Call Me By Your Name.
There is currently no director attached to the project. Searchlight's senior v-p of production and acquisitions Katie Goodson-Thomas, v-p of production Taylor Friedman and creative director Pete Spencer will represent the studio on the film.
Defending the Galaxy by Maria V Snyder is the third and final installment of her Sentinels of the Galaxy series, which I've really enjoyed reading over the years. Her protagonist Ara is one tough teenager, whose smart and intuitive thinking and hacking capabilities render her something of a super heroine. Here's the blurb: Year 2522. Oh. My. Stars. Junior Officer Ara Lawrence here, reporting for duty. Again. It's situation critical for the security team and everyone in the base - including my parents - with a new attack from the looters imminent, a possible galaxy-wide crime conspiracy and an unstoppable alien threat. But this all pales in the face of my mind-blowing discovery about the Q-net. Of course, no one believes me. I'm not sure I believe me. It could just be a stress-induced delusion. That's what my parents seem to believe...Their concern for me is hampering my ability to do my job. I know they love me, but with the Q-net in my corner, I'm the only one who can help the security team beat the shadowy aliens from the pits we discovered. We're holding them at bay, for now, but the entire Milky Way Galaxy is in danger of being overrun.With battles on too many fronts, it's looking dire. But one thing I've learned is when people I love are in jeopardy, I'll never give up trying to save them. Not until my dying breath. Which could very well be today.
With stunning prose that blasts along the plot like a fire on greased rails, Snyder shows us that courage comes in small and young packages. I was only annoyed by two things, Ara's nasty mother, who seeks to imprison her daughter to "keep her safe" and keep her away from all her fellow security officers/friends and boyfriend, which, along with her weak-ass father makes for some very trying moments where the story nearly stalls out, and Ara's ferocious lust for her boyfriend, which sees her throwing herself at him constantly, almost in a sexually harassing way. I have never known teenage girls to be so focused on sex, especially when they're under siege and there are lives on the line. But, perhaps in the future (and the present, it's been a long time since I was a teenager) young women are more comfortable being open and aggressive about their sexuality. Back in my day (cringe, I can't believe I'm starting to sound like my mother) it was always the guys who were trying to get into a girls pants and were hyper-focused on sex and female bodies. At any rate, this was a doozy of a space adventure, and I'd give it an A and recommend it heartily to anyone who has read the other two books in the series. All of Snyder's books are marvelous, though, so you can't go wrong with any title of hers that you might pick up at the local bookstore or library.
Fortune Favors the Dead by Stephen Spotswood is a wonderful noir-style mystery set in post WW2 England, with a disabled PI sleuth and her assistant, a lesbian named Will Parker who has grown up in the circus, and now lends her whip-smart brain and street-smart connections to solving mysteries with her boss, Lillian. The prose is pure Dash Hammet and Lillian Hellman, and the plot has just enough twists and turns to keep the reader turning pages until the wee hours. Here's the blurb: A wildly charming and fast-paced mystery written with all the panache of the hardboiled classics, Fortune Favors the Dead introduces Pentecost and Parker, an audacious new detective duo for the ages.
It's
1942 and Willowjean "Will" Parker is a scrappy circus runaway whose
knife-throwing skills have just saved the life of New York's best, and
most unorthodox, private investigator, Lillian Pentecost. When the
dapper detective summons Will a few days later, she doesn't expect to be
offered a life-changing proposition: Lillian's multiple sclerosis means
she can't keep up with her old case load alone, so she wants to hire
Will to be her right-hand woman. In return, Will is to receive a salary,
room and board, and training in Lillian's very particular art of
investigation.
Three years later, Will and Lillian are on the
Collins case: Abigail Collins was found bludgeoned to death with a
crystal ball following a big, boozy Halloween party at her home--her
body slumped in the same chair where her steel magnate husband shot
himself the year before. With rumors flying that Abigail was bumped off
by the vengeful spirit of her husband (who else could have gotten inside
the locked room?), the family has tasked the detectives with finding
answers where the police have failed. But that's easier said than done
in a case that involves messages from the dead, a seductive
spiritualist, and Becca Collins--the beautiful daughter of the deceased,
who Will quickly starts falling for. When Will and Becca's relationship
dances beyond the professional, Will finds herself in dangerous
territory, and discovers she may have become the murderer's next target.
This novel was engrossing and fun right from the first page, which I appreciate now, during these final days of the coronavirus pandemic quarantine, when everyone, myself included, is restless and searching for new distractions from the horrific news stories on radio and TV. I loved Will and Lil, and Lil's struggles with MS and being debilitated and exhausted really resonated with me as someone who struggles with many autoimmune diseases that handicap me in some way every day. I don't want to spoil the mystery for anyone, but I will say that I didn't see the end, or the killer, coming until the final 1/3 of the book. Usually I catch on much faster, but Spotswood is a real pro here, keeping the red herrings coming and the list of bad guys growing until it's absolutely necessary to the plot to do the reveal. I'd give this beautifully written mystery an A, and recommend it to anyone who likes "hardboiled" detectives and yet longs for inclusive characters in their fiction.
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